Community Writers Just Laugh Off Chevy Chase’s He-Man Women-Hating Jokes

Last week we told you that Dan Harmon, the creator of Community, called out Chevy Chase on Twitter for being a total dick. It seems like that’s going to be the recurring theme going into the returning season of Community this March. In a Daily Beast round table interview, the show’s actresses, Alison Brie, Yvette Nicole Brown, Gillian Jacobs and writer Megan Ganz, discuss what’s next for the show as well as Chevy Chase being from a “different time.”

When writer Jace Lacob asks the women how they react to Chevy Chase’s “male-centric” humor, they responded:

Brie: I mean, at a certain point you’ve got to just laugh it off, because Chevy’s Chevy.

Ganz: His bits are from a different time.

Brie: There’s a communication barrier, or maybe a generational gap in terms of comedy. A lot of crass comedy is accepted. Some people just don’t know how to word it the right way.

Sounds like Brie is right about one thing. Chevy’s Chevy, a hard to work with actor who’s continuing to grow a reputation for being an upstanding member of the He-Man Women-Haters Club. While they may be okay laughing off his jokes from another time, I’m not. I just don’t think “being old” is an acceptable excuse to be racist, homophobic, or sexist.

At some point we decided, as a society, that after a certain age people can’t be expected to change. They can’t be asked to understand when things are new and different. Then those same people turn around, make inane comments and everyone looks the other way. Except the difference between your great uncle using the N-word and Chevy Chase making off-color, sexist jokes is the audience. No one listens to a word your great uncle says anyways, so while he’s wrong , he’s harmless. Chevy Chase stars on a television show and people do listen to what he says.

Whether he’s speaking during an interview or he’s speaking in the writer’s room, people are listening. So it would be awesome for everyone involved, including his female co-workers, if he said something that was worth listening to.